Paul McCartney set for third wedding

LONDON — Former Beatle Paul McCartney was reportedly set to marry for the third time on Sunday, tying the knot with New York heiress Nancy Shevell at the same London venue where he married his first wife.

Although it was not officially confirmed, the 69-year-old musician told reporters outside his home on Saturday night, where a party was clearly being set up in the garden: “We are looking forward to it.”

McCartney and Shevell, 51, were expected to wed at Westminster Registry Office in Marylebone, central London, where the singer married his first wife Linda in 1969. She died of breast cancer in 1998.

They will then hold a small party back at McCartney’s home in the upmarket north London district St John’s Wood, reports said. Staff could be seen carrying champagne, glasses and chairs into the house on Saturday afternoon.

It will be a stark contrast with McCartney’s lavish second wedding to former model Heather Mills in 2002, when 300 guests filled a castle in Ireland.

That marriage ended in an acrimonious divorce, which was finally agreed in 2008 after almost two years of wrangling when Mills received a settlement worth £24.3 million (then $48 million, 30.8 million euros).

McCartney’s children — four from his first marriage and a daughter, Beatrice, from his second — were expected to attend Sunday’s wedding, as was Shevell’s 19-year-old son Arlen from her first marriage to a US lawyer.

McCartney and Shevell have been dating for four years and announced their engagement in May, but she has largely kept out of the spotlight.

Questioned about her relationship by the New York Observer, she expressed surprise at the public interest.

“It?s just not that intriguing,” Shevell said. “Not like his last marriage, which was really intriguing.

“I?m over 50. I work. That?s it. I haven?t been social and I have a small group of girlfriends. There really isn?t much to talk about.”

Their relationship has certainly been far calmer than that of McCartney and Mills, who was savaged in the British press for being a gold-digger.

The singer’s wealth was estimated at £495 million ($770 million, 576 million euros) by Britain’s Sunday Times Rich List earlier this year.

But Shevell also has a tidy fortune of her own. She is heir to her father’s trucking business, New England Motor Freight, where she is a vice president.

She holds a degree in business administration from Arizona State University where she majored in transportation, and has also sat on the board of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority for 10 years.